Homeschool: With Covid, homeschooling now required
Imagine two parents, each with full-time jobs (or one parent with a full-time job.) Now, suddenly, there is homeschool because of Covid.
These working parents find themselves under pressure for time and child care.
The Covid crisis has been kinder for parents who always homeschooled, since they have a system in place.
Homeschooling is not the taboo topic it once was. Statistics suggest most people know at least one family that homeschools, if not many families. Some states, like North Carolina, (See: ednc.org/in-numbers-homeschool-overtakes-private-school/) have more students homeschooled than attend private and parochial schools.
Homeschooling is actually a generic word for different approaches to school. One approach is Unschooling. They don't use a curriculum, but present life experiences to let children educate themselves.
Cyberschoolers use a state public school curriculum and online teachers.
Cultural homeschoolers may want to emphasize religious and ethical beliefs that are absent from public school.
For each of these choices, parents can hire online teachers to help students with more difficult subjects.
Covid-schoolers put in about the same school time as traditional homeschoolers, but don't have the system and they are pressed for time. In some cases, even schools have been unprepared.
One Covid-schooler says the demands on her time from her high-energy job and schooling threaten to overwhelm her energy.
One cultural schooler has been unaffected by the crisis, but is criticized for her choice to homeschool.
With the Covid crisis, however, boundaries are blurring.